There is something desperately sad about looking back at Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool now.
Pride comes first. It always should. Liverpool built one of the greatest teams English football has seen, won the Champions League, reached three European Cup finals, collected 97 points, then 99, and eventually became Premier League champions.
But that pride is now accompanied with massive frustration.
Manchester City have been found guilty by an independent commission of serious breaches of Premier League financial rules across nine seasons. City have appealed the verdict and that process must run its course.
For Liverpool supporters, however, the findings inevitably force us to reconsider an era we lived through in extraordinary detail.
What exactly were Liverpool competing against?
